Anyways....back to the food. Spicy doesn't even begin to describe the damage that Indian curry can do to the pain receptors in your mouth!!!! I am a wimp when it comes to spicy foods...well I WAS a wimp. Let's just say that my taste buds have a new, higher threshold of pain they can handle from spicy foods. I now understand why people from India come to the US, order the spiciest meal on the menu, and still ask for hot sauce. We should have taken some pictures, but alas, we were too busy chugging down the water/yogurt, wiping the sweat from our brows, or gulping down bread to worry about getting out a camera. I must say that spicy food would be a great diet food though because we only had to eat a few bites before we were suddenly full (or maybe it was our brains saying stop you CRAZY person before we burn from the inside out). Did I mention that some of the food was SPICY!!! :) We started getting smart towards the end of the trip and asked three or four times if the food was spicy before we ordered (once just wasn't enough with our non-existent knowledge of the Hindi language). We only managed to order two meals that were too hot for our tastes and the rest of the time we LOVED the food. It was always very flavorful and fun to eat. We didn't get as many pictures as we should have, but we were having too much fun eating it (or trying not to die from the heat).
This is what we thought we ordered. It's called a stuffed parantha. Parantha is a type of layered flat bread.
This is what we actually ordered. A deep-fried parantha that was most definitely not stuffed. Courtesy of our non-existent Hindi again. We weren't too disappointed though, because it turned out to be delicious. We broke and ate it with the perfectly spicy corn sauce.
An Indian dessert called gulab jamun. They are milk powder dough balls that have been deep-fried and then soaked in syrup. Chris didn't like these as much, but they were yummy!
Saffron flavored rice pudding (can't remember the Indian name...sorry). The stuff that looks like tinfoil was edible silver foil. I didn't really like this (probably because of the saffron), but Chris enjoyed it.
One of my favorite things from India!! Anise seed and sugar cubes (and if you ever get a chance to visit me you will most definitely get to try this). This is the equivalent of the after meal mints we get here with our check at a restaurant. You get a small spoonful, put it in the palm of your hand, put it in your mouth, and chew (thank goodness we had a guide with us to explain how to eat it and what it was for). It tastes a little like black licorice and is supposed to help clear the palate after your meal. It definitely clears the palate and became a fun thing to look forward to after our meals.
An anise seed drink. We got this at one restaurant after our meal when they brought our check. The taste kind of grows on you, but Chris didn't really like it. We never had the same style of anise seed. We had it in ice cream, candy coated, and plain (no sugar cubes).
I never got a picture of this but because eating with your hands is kind of mandatory for the curries and bread (otherwise I'm sure they wouldn't taste as good), there was usually a sink to wash our hands in after eating or we were brought some sort of wet towel or bowl of water with a lemon in it.
An Indian dessert platter. I can't remember the names of them all but the gulab jamuns were the best. The others were kind of.....interesting. I think I like American desserts better ;)
The makings of a fresh lime soda. These are made with club soda or seltzer water, fresh lime juice and either just sugar or salt & sugar. It was a good way to replenish the body after sweating like crazy in the heat (it was so so so hot there). I liked both the 'sweet' and 'sweet and salt' but Chris preferred the 'sweet.' We had to make our own at this place, but usually it was brought to us already made.
Our last Indian meal. I can't remember what the reddish curry was called but it was good. The white curry had cashews and paneer (Indian cottage cheese squares) and kind of tasted like coconut cream. It was by far my favorite curry we had there. Paired with the naan you see here was definitely the best meal to end our adventure in India.
India has like 90 something types of mangoes and we were there during mango season. What a blessing! On our last day we had our guide buy us a few (because he could get them for the real Indian price and not for the jacked up 'white' price...and because he spoke the language : D I washed them with our grapefruit seed extract (which we drank in all our bottled water) at the hotel and we ate them with a spoon. The BEST mango I have ever had. Chris loved them too and he has never liked mangoes.
I never really appreciated Indian food before we got this new job, but I am forever changed. My new goal is to learn how to make a real Indian meal (one that won't burn your mouth off of course :) just for fun and because it's so good.
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